Support NeoGAF

[BlackTron]

I wonder what those people have in their heads when every videogame makes them go "ok but what about the romances and sex orientation uh?".

 

[winjer]

Ok then, my bad. Thanks for the correction.

Make a simple comparison to European medieval knights.
There were hundreds of them. But some were mere foot soldiers. Some were nobility on horse.
But they were still a minority in an army with thousands of archers and spearmen that came from the peasantry.
And a peasant or serf pretending to be a knight, would get him into a lot of trouble.

 

[crackajack]

Ubi took creative liberties since forever with AC games. And expecting them to not jump on the probably most interesting character for the new target location due to his race is then almost weird. They don't know shit about anything in the japanese era, probably, and even if they do, the only reasonably interesting one is probably that black dude being somewhat included in that whole samurai stuff. Similar maybe to The Last Samurai being interesting for an "international" audience since we got to learn about them through a westerners eyes. Same as Dancing with Wolves or Last Mohican. "We" like to put us into other countries, and not necessarily tag along a local introducing us to some local stuff. Using a black dude to represent us, is then certainly progressive.
Eg some Bruce Lee game where we play Bruce in America would make equally sense - even though the whole topic would then of course hardly be about the location and its customs at all but about the skills of that protagonist he brings with him- and I assume fewer people would want to experience something based around Chuck Norris or whoever more "true" american/immigrant.

I kinda understand that japanese people would have wanted to have an actual japanese historic figure or just their own ethnicity without any real person background, but the anti woke arguments appear pretty much equally dumb as those we have to have diversity in anything, in this case.
Inaccuracies and possibly just lazily reusing assets from chinese stuff and trying to make them appear japanese certainly would fool me, but that seems imho even a bigger problem. But I would also not be surprised if the Ezio, Black Flag, Odyssey, Origins ie everything locations did not also have stuff that was not exactly correct.
Braveheart, and certainly a ton other movies, isn't a documentary either but its story entertained and inspired a lot of people to read about what was true.
I kinda agree, while I hardly can actually feel their specific concerns at all, but also: what happened to just being chill about everything and having an italian plumber in mushroom kingdom and a blue hedgehog running fast after rings. I probably partake as well by posting here, but all the social media stuff and everyone wanting to preach something and only hear echos in bubbles is exhausting and not productive at all.

 

[CGNoire]

When RE5 came out so many people lost their shit due to a black woman and a white man teaming up to kill black people/zombies, they even updated the game to add white enemies ffs.
But now when the same argument gets turned against a black man teaming up with an asian woman to kill asians, it's suddenly racist to complain about it... these culture wars suck so goddamn much

There both Racist Arguments.

 

[Danknugz]

none of this will matter because the game will be garbage anyway

 

[KiteGr]

 

[Senhua]

I fail to see the difference.

Because the char in Nioh is male. And male asian protag is hard to sell in the west.
So the choice is make him foreigner or change to female.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Ubisoft games are so irrelevant to me that I didn't know whats up. (it was in a podcast where people were saying. "is racism is just racism")

I knew there was an African samurai, and there is an anime called afro samurai....

this is similar to the "censorship" in SB. these culture warriors are so on the edge, attacking anything, making it a big deal than they start looking crazier and crazier

 

[ReyBrujo]

Because the char in Nioh is male. And male asian protag is hard to sell in the west.
So the choice is make him foreigner or change to female.

You are telling me Western audiences haven't matured 50 years after the Bruce Lee - David Carradine thing?

 

[Little Chicken]

Normally I wouldn't be bothered by something like this, but I just watched the trailer and was like.... huh.

That's like me laying an egg and a crocodile comes out.

 

[Gaiff]

Yeah... I wouldn't place all my cookies in their facts.

For example, in that post, the mod says:



Then you follow the links he provided in his comment to see what evidence there is and well...

In this link:



The guy who makes the lengthy post, provides ZERO evidence that Yasuke was a Samurai. The only mention of the word Samurai, is his own comment on his post saying:



Once again, ZERO evidence he was actually a Samurai, yet the guy claims he was DEFINITELY made a Samurai.

Yes, I read this at length, and I wouldn't say he provides, "zero" evidence. I would say that the evidence he provides is not 100% conclusive.

He argues the following:

1. Yasuke was given a stipend by Nobunaga. The term used was "fuchi" which translates to rice or warrior stipend. As such, Yasuke was likely a paid warrior.

2. Luis Frois says Yasuke fought at Nijō where he surrendered his sword. He was given a katana by Nobunaga.

3. He was in permanent service to Nobunaga. Hideyoshi, who started off as a peasant and worked for Nobunaga as a shoe carrier, later became a samurai had servants and the term used for his servants denotes that they were of a lower station than Yasuke, so Yasuke was more than just a low-level servant.

4. At the time, the title of samurai did not necessarily mean someone of a noble and hereditary rank, this came later. So you can't expect to find any record of some grand ceremony where Yasuke is elevated to the rank of samurai. A 小姓 (page/squire/aide/bodyguard) was a full samurai. but he says that Yasuke was never referred to having held those titles. However, the Maeda Clan of the Chronicles of Nobunaga said he most likely held the title. It's also said that he did carry Nobunaga's weapons, something someone he didn't trust wouldn't have done.

5. This isn't in the thread but most famous samurais were never referred to as such so expecting Yasuke to be called one doesn't make much sense. The guy arguing against him even said he withdrew his argument because he asked a friend who teaches late feudal Japanese history and said person said that Yasuke was most likely a samurai.

However, I'm a novice when it comes to Japanese history so I'm not sure that if among historians, this is enough evidence to prove he was a samurai. He is said to have been one by Thomas Lockley, a professor of history at the Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo. The thing is, Lockley wrote a huge book about Yasuke with a lot of creative license and interpretations.

That is because the term samurai... wasn't really ever a "title" but more like a designation. It initially was only used amongst Japanese nobility that were warriors. But eventually became used for everyone who was a warrior and adhered to a certain code. Think that code was called Bushido?

It's actually a tad more complicated. The term samurai was used to denote men of high status who served powerful nobles (the root word of samurai actually means, "to serve"). Bushi-do as you said is/was a code. Bushis were warriors or professional soldiers but not necessarily samurais. The confusion stems from the fact that most samurais were also professional soldiers who served a lord so they would also be bushis but a bushi wasn't necessarily a samurai. They could just be a normal soldier.

Bushi-do simply means, "way of the warrior" and samurais who fought would have followed that code.

So basically, after the first growing years of samurai"ism (made-up word) all the years that followed, and its majority, which also encompasses the time of yasuke, if you were a warrior and adhered to the bushido code of conduct, you were a samurai.

Shortly after Nobunaga's death, Hideyoshi passed a law that effectively made it impossible for peasants to become samurai. The irony of this being the fact that he started off as a peasant and rose through the ranks and became a samurai by serving Nobunaga. After that, he kicked the ladder down and made it hereditary. Yasuke could have been a samurai despite not having been of noble blood at the time. Later on though, no, but he was already gone by then.

Anyway, I think the most important part of this isn't even whether Yasuke was a samurai or not. It's whether or not he took part in battles and wore the traditional armor (yoroi). I'm no expert on the subject whatsoever. It'd be cool if someone here with more knowledge could chime in but Japanese scholars familiar with Yasuke are a lot less common than I thought. It shouldn't surprise me given the fact that the man was a mere footnote in their history.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Japanese devs should make a game about French people. That'll show 'em.

 

[//DEVIL//]

This company needs to be burned along with everyone in it.

It’s really the best outcome for gamers . Get rid of a cancer in gaming.

“Our games are AAAA” …. Fuck off you pieces of shit !

 

[Senhua]

Japanese devs should make a game about French people. That'll show 'em.

Japanese mongolian 2ft tall male as Napoleon Legendary Imperial Guard paired with French Assassins daughter of Arno Dorian. FR settings.

 

[CGNoire]

Where is the IGN story saying this is a game about an African massacring Japanese.

Because " Woke Points"

 

[shamoomoo]

If the next game is set in ancient Africa I hope an Asian man is the main character. Of course, anyone that has a problem with that is in-fact a racist. I mean, who wouldn't expect or hope to play an an Asian man in a game set in ancient Africa?

I believe it's the Swahili coat, about 600 or so years ago,Chinese people came to eastern Africa,I not sure if stems from trade or these Chinese sailors were blown off course.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Japan got blacked.

 

[DelireMan7]

Why are people pretending like there literally isn't a Japanese protagonist of the front cover? WTF? So good at stealth she's literally invisible I guess

It would destroy their argument "No Japanese main character in AC set in Japan ?!"

 

[IAmRei]

No thanks, hardskip, i'm still have Ronin, far better game

 

[DelireMan7]

Japanese devs should make a game about French people. That'll show 'em.

They already had and their depiction of Joan of Arc is extremely inaccurate. I am so outraged that'll eat a Baguette.

 

[Strategize]

It would destroy their argument "No Japanese main character in AC set in Japan ?!"

They have no argument.

There IS a Japanese protagonist.
It does NOT matter whether he was a samurai IRL or not because AC is literally famous for bending history.
He is NOT the stealth ninja character therefore "blending in" isn't a concern for his gameplay.

But, racism isn't something that can be defeated with simple basic logic like this, because racism isn't logical to begin with.

 

[Mortisfacio]

My last hope with this series was Valhalla. They managed to make norse mythos boring. That game was an overly long grind for no reason. Unless an AC game is like a 93-95 meta, I think I'm just done with the franchise.

 

[Arsic]

Who cares? Japan doesn’t even buy video games unless it’s a gambling simulator on a phone with pedophile fantasy Chinese cartoon character girls.

/s

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The lead in a Japan era AC game is a black dude? lol

 

[Pelta88]

4 People in Japan = Japan?

 

[Punished Miku]

They already had and their depiction of Joan of Arc is extremely inaccurate. I am so outraged that'll eat a Baguette.

Jeanne D'Arc has a Lion furry teammate. I can't remember a lot else, but it's a total fantasy game.

 

[Griffon]

During different times I would've given Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt.

But nowadays, you know exactly why they did it: activism. And we had enough of this shit.

 

[DelireMan7]

They have no argument.

There IS a Japanese protagonist.
It does NOT matter whether he was a samurai IRL or not because AC is literally famous for bending history.
He is NOT the stealth ninja character therefore "blending in" isn't a concern for his gameplay.

I am 100% with you.

I think this is just a case of "Ubisoft trash", "Assassin's Creed boring/bad etc..."

I am not even a fan of Ubisoft work. From what I've play of AC serie, I like it but they're just average game to me. Nice game when I want a mainstream cookie cutter game.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Yes, I read this at length, and I wouldn't say he provides, "zero" evidence. I would say that the evidence he provides is not 100% conclusive.

He argues the following:

1. Yasuke was given a stipend by Nobunaga. The term used was "fuchi" which translates to rice or warrior stipend. As such, Yasuke was likely a paid warrior.

2. Luis Frois says Yasuke fought at Nijō where he surrendered his sword. He was given a katana by Nobunaga.

3. He was in permanent service to Nobunaga. Hideyoshi, who started off as a peasant and worked for Nobunaga as a shoe carrier, later became a samurai had servants and the term used for his servants denotes that they were of a lower station than Yasuke, so Yasuke was more than just a low-level servant.

4. At the time, the title of samurai did not necessarily mean someone of a noble and hereditary rank, this came later. So you can't expect to find any record of some grand ceremony where Yasuke is elevated to the rank of samurai. A 小姓 (page/squire/aide/bodyguard) was a full samurai. but he says that Yasuke was never referred to having held those titles. However, the Maeda Clan of the Chronicles of Nobunaga said he most likely held the title. It's also said that he did carry Nobunaga's weapons, something someone he didn't trust wouldn't have done.

5. This isn't in the thread but most famous samurais were never referred to as such so expecting Yasuke to be called one doesn't make much sense. The guy arguing against him even said he withdrew his argument because he asked a friend who teaches late feudal Japanese history and said person said that Yasuke was most likely a samurai.

However, I'm a novice when it comes to Japanese history so I'm not sure that if among historians, this is enough evidence to prove he was a samurai. He is said to have been one by Thomas Lockley, a professor of history at the Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo. The thing is, Lockley wrote a huge book about Yasuke with a lot of creative license and interpretations.

It's actually a tad more complicated. The term samurai was used to denote men of high status who served powerful nobles (the root word of samurai actually means, "to serve"). Bushi-do as you said is/was a code. Bushis were warriors or professional soldiers but not necessarily samurais. The confusion stems from the fact that most samurais were also professional soldiers who served a lord so they would also be bushis but a bushi wasn't necessarily a samurai. They could just be a normal soldier.

Bushi-do simply means, "way of the warrior" and samurais who fought would have followed that code.

Shortly after Nobunaga's death, Hideyoshi passed a law that effectively made it impossible for peasants to become samurai. The irony of this being the fact that he started off as a peasant and rose through the ranks and became a samurai by serving Nobunaga. After that, he kicked the ladder down and made it hereditary. Yasuke could have been a samurai despite not having been of noble blood at the time. Later on though, no, but he was already gone by then.

Anyway, I think the most important part of this isn't even whether Yasuke was a samurai or not. It's whether or not he took part in battles and wore the traditional armor (yoroi). I'm no expert on the subject whatsoever. It'd be cool if someone here with more knowledge could chime in but Japanese scholars familiar with Yasuke are a lot less common than I thought. It shouldn't surprise me given the fact that the man was a mere footnote in their history.

How do you know all of this

 

[DelireMan7]

Jeanne D'Arc has a Lion furry teammate. I can't remember a lot else, but it's a total fantasy game.

I mean Japan deserves what they got with AC: Shadows even more then !

 

[StreetsofBeige]

When UBI makes more AC games in different settings here's some recos:

Mexico = Vietnamese lead
Scandanavian = El Salvadorian lead
Mongolia = Finnish lead
Assassin's Creed Barbie World Edition: Jason Voorhies

 

[Majormaxxx]

4 People in Japan = Japan?

It's not 4 people. Go to the Japanese trailer on YouTube and see for yourself. You can translate them.. comment after comment confirm this.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Remember the days when you didn't like a game, you just played another game and didn't think about it.

Pffft, what? Fuck no

This is my hobby and if something is shit in it, I'll moan about it

Anything else is a clear indication you've no passion in it.

 

[K' Dash]

Who cares? Japan doesn’t even buy video games unless it’s a gambling simulator on a phone with pedophile fantasy Chinese cartoon character girls.

/s

you sneaky bastard

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Ubi took creative liberties since forever with AC games. And expecting them to not jump on the probably most interesting character for the new target location due to his race is then almost weird. They don't know shit about anything in the japanese era, probably, and even if they do, the only reasonably interesting one is probably that black dude being somewhat included in that whole samurai stuff. Similar maybe to The Last Samurai being interesting for an "international" audience since we got to learn about them through a westerners eyes. Same as Dancing with Wolves or Last Mohican. "We" like to put us into other countries, and not necessarily tag along a local introducing us to some local stuff. Using a black dude to represent us, is then certainly progressive.
Eg some Bruce Lee game where we play Bruce in America would make equally sense - even though the whole topic would then of course hardly be about the location and its customs at all but about the skills of that protagonist he brings with him- and I assume fewer people would want to experience something based around Chuck Norris or whoever more "true" american/immigrant.

I kinda understand that japanese people would have wanted to have an actual japanese historic figure or just their own ethnicity without any real person background, but the anti woke arguments appear pretty much equally dumb as those we have to have diversity in anything, in this case.
Inaccuracies and possibly just lazily reusing assets from chinese stuff and trying to make them appear japanese certainly would fool me, but that seems imho even a bigger problem. But I would also not be surprised if the Ezio, Black Flag, Odyssey, Origins ie everything locations did not also have stuff that was not exactly correct.
Braveheart, and certainly a ton other movies, isn't a documentary either but its story entertained and inspired a lot of people to read about what was true.
I kinda agree, while I hardly can actually feel their specific concerns at all, but also: what happened to just being chill about everything and having an italian plumber in mushroom kingdom and a blue hedgehog running fast after rings. I probably partake as well by posting here, but all the social media stuff and everyone wanting to preach something and only hear echos in bubbles is exhausting and not productive at all.

The difference between movies and games is that A-list stars push sales. So Tom Cruise being a crowned samurai will sell tickets. Random Hollywood actor putting on a cringey fake accent to play a part still sells tickets. Dolph Lundgren is Swedish but always plays a monster Russian guy. It can still work. And when there's ticket sales dangling in front of movie studios, it's worth the creative freedom to do weird stuff. David Carradine is Irish and his most popular acting part was pretending to be a Chinese guy.

But for gaming, how does a fictitious black samurai benefit gamers and sales over a Japanese video game character playing samurai?

Ghost of Tsushima got good reviews and sold a ton.

 

[Braag]

I'm not Black nor Japanese, if I was either of those I would probably be annoyed by this.
I get why Japanese gamers don't like Ubi's choice of a protagonist. I also think it's weird how Ubisoft doesn't make a AC game in south Africa or something with a black protagonist, instead they make the protagonist of the Japanese AC black, almost like Ubi thinks Africa doesn't have interesting settings or people in its history.

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Ubi really is the Netflix of gaming isn't it?

Hory sheet!

 

[AJUMP23]

We live for the outrage.

 

[ComputerBlue]

Japanese devs should make a game about French people. That'll show 'em.

And give them all British accents, oh wait.

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Who cares? Japan doesn’t even buy video games unless it’s a gambling simulator on a phone with pedophile fantasy Chinese cartoon character girls.

/s

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Two Ubisoft games that I would normally play: Star Wars Outlaws and now Assassins Creed will likely not be played by me. Too much identity politics in these games. Yes, there is some historical context for a black man in feudal japan, but he wasn't no fucking samarai. I get it, Assassins Creed games are not about true history, but there are much better ways to tell the story that don't involve blatant pandering.

 

[Senhua]

I'm not Black nor Japanese, if I was either of those I would probably be annoyed by this.
I get why Japanese gamers don't like Ubi's choice of a protagonist. I also think it's weird how Ubisoft doesn't make a AC game in south Africa or something with a black protagonist, instead they make the protagonist of the Japanese AC black, almost like Ubi thinks Africa doesn't have interesting settings or people in its history.

Honestly looking at the trailer.
The female assassin's is the true lead protag of the game.
It's just weird instead giving her local pair like all normal person would do with Sengoku era settings, they choose this "historical gaijin" dude with questionable background to satisfy their race mixing fetish.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I'm not Black nor Japanese, if I was either of those I would probably be annoyed by this.
I get why Japanese gamers don't like Ubi's choice of a protagonist. I also think it's weird how Ubisoft doesn't make a AC game in south Africa or something with a black protagonist, instead they make the protagonist of the Japanese AC black, almost like Ubi thinks Africa doesn't have interesting settings or people in its history.

Technically they did. Origins is Egypt, but I get what you mean (everyone else would too). Whn it comes to gaming, movies or TV shows, it seems the only part of Africa that gets showtime is Egypt. And when it comes to Egypt it's always all the stuff about pyramids, mummies, sphinx all wrapped up into some kind of action adventure story.

That's basically it for Africa in media.

Although to be perfectly fair to media companies. If you make something about Africa with lots of black people in it, youre basically begging for a bullseye on your head. Look at Resident Evil 5. Gamers shoot African zombies and Capcom got grilled as racist.

So to be fair, if I was a media producer, I'd avoid Africa too. What person in the production crew wants headaches abut racism or political this or that. Forget it. Pick a different place.

 

[AlphaMale]

Holy shit!! I was so excited for this game to come out, but.... I'm playing a black assassin in feudal Japan? (this is the definition of wokeness) WTF?!?!

Was an easy buy for me, but now I ain't touching it.

 

[Scotty W]

Worth a read.

 

[shamoomoo]

Because the char in Nioh is male. And male asian protag is hard to sell in the west.
So the choice is make him foreigner or change to female.

But that isn't the Japanese problems, it's in the folks in the west who are making noise.

 

[Gaiff]

How do you know all of this

Just research. Been reading about Yasuke for a few years. Sadly, I have to rely on second-hand interpretations because I can't read Portuguese or Japanese.

Lately has been especially challenging because there's a lot of agenda pushing from both sides, so it's difficult to know who to trust.

 

[Twinblade]

Color me surprised.

 

[BennyBlanco]

It is kinda weird to have a fictional black sumarai killing hundreds of Japanese people when every other ass creed game has had a local protag

 

[sendit]

This is a legitimate complaint, not the online requirement from the other thread.